This is the city: Los Angeles, California. I work here. I'm an ex-mayor. Los Angeles is a magnet for people from all over the world. Some of them run for public office. Inevitably some of them stray from the golden rule and rule for those that have the gold. That's when I go to work. My name is Yorty. I'm a dead pol.

Sunday, August 15, 2010

What is going on with the LA County Sheriff's Office these days? It seems that a number of poor administrative and perhaps political decisions has led to the unnecessary death of three innocent young people.

To be sure I've always supported our rank and file law enforcement officers. But like they say a fish rots from the head and perhaps it's time to make some changes.

Let's talk first about Jamiel Shaw. 17 years old, a giften athlete and scholar young Jamiel was innocently shot down by an illegal alien who had been in the Sheriff's custody a few days before. Jamiel's father Jamiel Sr. told us that Jamiel was loved and respected by family and friends. "He was my redeemer," Shaw said. Why was Jamiel's killer not deported when the Sheriff knew they had an illegal alien with a criminal past in their custody? Was the department gripped by political correctness imposed by race baiting pandering politicians?

Then there's Mitrice Richardson. 24 years old when she was arrested last September by Sheriff's deputies in Malibu following intoxicated behavior at a local restaurant. Finding pot in her car officers impounded her car. Taken to the Sheriff's station in Agoura Hills she was released in the middle of the night without having been given a routine mental examination despite her bizarre behavior in the restaurant. Richardson was let go from the Sheriff's office, far from home without her car, purse, cell phone or any money. Within moments of Mitrice leaving the station an unknown uniformed Sheriff's Deputy left the station, as seen on videotape, and not at a normal shift changeover. Richardson's skeletal remains were found in Malibu Canyon last week quite a distance from where she was released on foot last year. Her death remains a mystery but questions persist about the Sheriff's Department handled her arrest and if procedures were properly followed.

Most recently it was the death of another 17 year old, Zac Champommier of Granada Hills that raised questions how Sheriff's deputies make their decisions in use of force matters. Zac was in the parking lot of a Studio City shopping center when an inter-agency plainclothes anti-drug task force was meeting and officers noticed a man looking in cars in the parking lot. Officers began a pursuit of the mine, which likely spooked the young and naive Zac who began to speed off in his car. Officers allege that Zac struck one of the officers with the car (disputed by a witness) and the youngster was struck down by a hail of bullets by the officers. Zac's death devastated a community but united them to organize and demand answers.

Though each of these cases were different each involved young people who were not criminals and did not have to die. Poor decisions likely came from an atmosphere of politics forced on law enforcement whether it's sanctuary city policies on the left or the inane war on drugs of the right.

We can only hope that each of these cases will be investigated honestly and that the politicians will get out of the way. But don't hold your breath.

5 Comments:

You've mixed things up a little her. Jamil Shaw was unquestionably an innocent bystander who was killed by an illegal alien. He was also killed by political correctness of the worst kind, where our political leaders are too afraid to enforce our laws.

Zac Champommier died in a hail of bullets because he was not exactly an innocent bystander but had, for reasons that the PC crowd are suppressing, chosen to place himself in an area where he had no legitimate business to be. At best he panicked when he found himself surrounded by cops, then he struck one. It was his fault that the cops responded to his apparent use of lethal force with theirs.

But Mitrice Richardson was anything but an innocent bystander. She was lawfully arrested for stiffing a Malibu restaurant for her $89 sushi dinner. When her mother found out that her out of control daughter had been arrested, she did what any other mother would NOT do, she left her daughter to spend the night in jail. Mitrice's mother should have done what any caring parent would do - rush to Malibu and bail her daughter out as apparently the mother knew of Mitrice's odd behavior.

With the exception of Jamil Shaw, both Zac and Mitrice could be alive today if their parents had acted more responsibly. But we've become a society where responsibility is a dirty word, unless it holding the taxpayers responsible for paying millions of dollars to parents who accept no responsibility for their children.

What's the point you're making here Higby?

The "error" that led to Jamil's death can be fairly placed with law enforcement's frustration at the failure of our elected officials to tackle illegal immigration - perhaps in the same way that the late Chief Gates let the African American community riot to show that a commitment to some serious law enforcement in that community was needed.

The "errors" in Zac's case were his parents not knowing where he was, and why he was there. His error was trying to run away from whatever he was actually doing.

The "error" in the Mitrice case was a mother who decided that the Sheriff's department is some sort social service. It's not.

11:31 is despicable, tarring a young man who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and was shot by panicked, plainclothes Sheriff's deputies who shouldn't have been "Debriefing" some undisclosed alleged sting at the corner of Laurel Canyon and Ventura, a busy, upscale shopping mall in the early hours of the evening!

Witness L A had the best coverage and comments from friends: worst that could be said about Zac was, he was meeting some guy he "met" on Craigslist, and when the guy in a case of misstaken identify was tackled by these confused deputies, he tried to flee the parking lot and was shot dead.

And if it's true the Shaws were the victims of political correctness, it's NOT the fault of the LAPD or Democratic/apolitical Chief Bratton, the Mayor or Weiss a mere city councilman at the time but of the SAME SHERIFF LEROY BACA, DA STEVE COOLEY, THE TWO REPUBLICANS WHO ARE IN CHARGE OF THE COUNTY PRISON SYSTEM AND WHOSE DEPUTIES LET THE KILLER ESPINOZA OUT OF JAIL BASED SOLELY ON HIM CLAIMING HE WAS BORN IN THE USA, NO IMMIGRATION CHECK. Even though he was a known gangmember and repeat offender.

Not the first time Cooley let someone out of jail who murdered someone the next day - there was a man in jail on a restraining order against threatening his wife he let out, and he killed her next day. There was a brief mention of this in ths Pro-Cooley Republican Slimes AFTER the last election, in tiny print. The attempts by his opponent own of his own Asst. DA's to get out such stories was as usual buried.

This comment shows how despicable the Cooley-Trutanich Krowd is in lying, twisting the fact, maligning the innocent to achieve their evil ambitions. True EVIL hiding in the guise of phony "moral crusades" like vs. Polanski a vendetta that cost US a FORTUNE.

7:40 is another dum dum who doesn't understand that the CITY's SO40 had nothing to do with COUNTY's release of Pedro Espinoza who killed Jamiel.Thank your Republicans Cooley and Baca for that. NOW after Walter Moore led them astray for his, Berger- Rumpled and Clown Carmen's and Clown Cooley's ambiitons allied with morons Doug McIntyre and Kevin James, the Shaws are finally trying to get justice from the County but have blown their momentum and cred.

They were brushed off by the DA's office and now when they appeared before the BOS a couple months ago by Gloria Molina and even the Republican Supervisors Knabe and Antonovich.

Thank the ambitious stupidity of Wanna be Mayor Moore, and Clown Carmen and his puppetmaster for their plight. But you people can't be blamed for being so naive and stupid when your leaders like these clowns and Zine lied to you!

By the way, Jasmine Cannick the blogger was on Peter Tilden's show this morning KABC claiming that the Sheriff Deputies were complicit in actually killing her, since they can't produce taped evidence of her walking out of the station even though they have tape rolling day and night. It's on her blog too. Maybe far-fetched but something to wonder about.